Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Dr. Ruwart's Mistaken Inference

Dr. Ruwart ventures an inference when she writes: Mr. Starr’s memo appeared on Independent Political Review (IPR) less than 18 minutes after it was sent to the LNC. [...] with the tight time window, it is more likely that someone already had Mr. Starr’s memo and was ready to upload it as soon as it was sent to the LNC.

It’s not always easy to tell on IPR, but I in fact was the author of the IPR story Dr. Ruwart references. She suggests that Starr, or perhaps someone who had early access to Starr’s memo, was a source for my story. However, that suggestion is based on a mistake.

First, I want to make it clear that I don’t confirm or deny who my sources are — to anybody.

Now, Dr. Ruwart’s mistake is that she thinks I had an hour less time to write my article than I actually did. My source(s) forwarded me an email apparently sent to the LNC at what would be 10:00pm in the Pacific Time Zone. I did not post my article until 11:26pm.

While IPR articles are currently timestamped three hours ahead of California time, in April they were being timestamped two hours ahead. I know this because any time I post original content for IPR, I email myself a copy. I emailed myself that April article at 11:26pm, and its posting timestamp on IPR is 1:26am the next day. Similarly, my Apr 26 IPR article on Day 2 of the LPCA convention was posted via email to my own blog (http://libertarianintelligence.com/2009/04/lpca-convention-day-2.html) at 5:06pm, and then immediately pasted into an IPR posting that became timestamped at 7:07pm.

So however much time Dr. Ruwart believes I had to write the article, I actually had an hour more.